Hi All,

I have an Ithaca 37 12ga that I’m having some problems with. Shells will not go into the magazine tube. If I disassemble it, and remove the spring shell latch they’ll go in(though obviously the shotgun will not function properly in this state), and if I disassemble the magazine, they’ll slide right in. So I’m pretty sure it’s not the tube or follower. I tried putting a shell in and then reassembling it, to see if it would actually feed from the tube. No dice.

I bought another shell latch and installed it to no avail. Before I did that, I cleaned that area out pretty well. So it isn’t just some crud packed in behind the shell latch.

I’m stumped at this point, and the old military armorers manual for the 37 doesn’t mention this problem. Anybody have an idea what’s wrong with this thing?

Thanks in advance.

You might ask this question over in the Ithaca section... https://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewforum.php?f=59
The guys don't always venture into this section, but someone over there will know.

.

Welcome to SGW ! !

Have you tried it with a different brand of shells ?

Some gun's manufacturing tolerances can run from one extreme to another.

It sounds like either the shell's rim is a bit too large in diameter for clearing the latch, or the tip of the latch could use a bit of stoning/smoothing (baby steps, here).